Amsterdam & Brugge

I just got home from Amsterdam and Brugge and it was quite the experience.  To get to Amsterdam, we took a coach.  The coach drove onto a ferry at the Port of Dover, which was a little creepy.  I watched as semis, cars and other coaches piled off the ferry and was a little worried that our ferry would sink.  Luckily, we made it across the English Chanel and landed in France about an hour later.  From France, we drove through Belgium and then stopped for lunch in the Netherlands.  We got to Amsterdam that night and the first tour we went on was one of the red light district.  I was not sure what to expect at all, but it was actually a really cool experience. There were rows and rows of windows and we walked around for a long time and I'm sure we didn't see even close to everyone.  It was a little strange though because there is a church in the red light district and families live above the girls' windows.  Now, I realize that it is just a way of life there and not really a big deal for the locals.  The next day, we went out of Amsterdam to a small town call Volendam.  We went on a tour of a cheese and clog farm where the group learned how cheese and wooden clogs are made.  We even got to sample some of the cheese and it was delicious.  My favorite was either the garlic and onion cheese or the ham cheese (there were actually chunks of ham in the cheese...YUM)!  We went back into Amsterdam and took a quick driving tour of the city and then we took a canal tour.  There were so many canals and it was a great way to see the city.  It was really rainy and crappy so after wandering around for a while we decided to head back to the hotel to dry off and warm up.  That night, we went to a bar in Amsterdam and then out for dinner at a really cute Italian restaurant.  The next morning, we left for Brugge, Belgium.  It is a very touristy town, but also very cute.  We walked along the canals and found the Markt and Burg, which were like the city squares.  Then we ate fries, waffles and chocolate and now I know why Belgium is famous for it!  Before heading back to London, we stopped at a Belgian chocolate factory.  I did pretty well and only bought one bag of chocolate, I'm already in enough of a sugar coma from this trip as it is!